WISSAHICKON — The ongoing negotiations between the Wissahickon School District and the Wissahickon Education Alliance (Support) union continue to stall despite the two sides coming back to the table Dec. 6.

WEA chief negotiator Drew Muir met with the board’s chief negotiator, Jeffrey Sultanik, along with the state mediators to try to find common ground on which to build toward a new contract.

The union’s contract expired at the end of June.

The WEA-S — whose members include secretaries, classroom aides, bus drivers, custodians, maintenance personnel, lunch assistants, technical assistants, grounds personnel, security personnel and nursing assistants — originally announced a strike set for Oct. 29 after the board rejected a final plea to reconsider a third-party fact-finding report regarding terms for a new contract. The two sides then agreed to come back to the table and the WEA-S canceled the strike for a 45-day “cooling off period,” which allowed for further discussions. They then agreed to meet Nov. 29 in a state-mandated negotiation session to continue talks, though, according to both sides, no progress was made.

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According to an email from WEA Co-President Ann Marie McDowell, no change had taken place after the Dec. 6 meeting

“The WEA will continue to bargain with the district in the manner it always has. We will hold the line and will not allow the recent threats of subcontract force an unfavorable settlement,” McDowell wrote. “If the district manages to violate the current language that would prevent them from subcontracting and wins that argument in the future, then we will deal with that issue as it presents itself, however, the language is there so the current threat is moot.”

McDowell wrote the district was naive if it believed parents would agree to allow “$13 an hour employees with no experience” to work with their children who suffer from “mental, emotional and physical needs.”

“The law requires a college education for these positions and if someone is willing to commit to these positions at $13 dollars per hour without benefits both health care and leave time, then I, as a parent, would question the type of services they would provide,” McDowell wrote. “Bottom line: the taxpayers of this community have already paid for this contract to settle. The total cost is $12 per household per year, if taxes needed to be raised (which has not happened in six years) the district has yet to provide, privately or publicly, information proving that this is not affordable to them.”

Sultanik called the union’s description of the subcontracted employees a “mischaracterization.” He said the district had received a proposal from a “responsible firm” and the employees would “fulfill the highly qualified requirements” for the positions.

He said he wasn’t surprised by the union’s strategy because he called it an “attempt to justify their inflated compensation.”

The negotiations between the two sides were professional, he said, thought there are still “significant fundamental differences in our positions.”

No progress has been made regarding the official position, Sultanik noted, because the WEA-S had been unwilling to meet since the fact-finding report was published in June.

“This was a constructive meeting talking about the issues that divide us,” he said.